FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT QUINTANA ROO - PAGE 3

Mexico's ruling party appeared it would beat back a challenge by opposition parties in Sunday's race for governorship of Quintana Roo, a Caribbean coast tourist state known for its Cancun resorts. With 13 percent of the vote counted late Sunday, the Institutional Revolutionary Party's candidate, Joaquin Hendricks, had 41 percent of the vote. Gaston Alegre of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party had 32 percent, and a pro-business party, National Action, had 23 percent. Early results were not available Sunday for another race, the gubernatorial election in Hidalgo state.

Former major leaguer Jose Canseco announced Wednesday that he will not play in the Mexican League this season after admitting he had taken a banned substance that he had no prescription for. The banned substance was testosterone, Mexican League president Plinio Escalente confirmed to ESPN Deportes . Canseco had originally refused to take a drug test, but subsequently admitted the use of testosterone, the web site reported. Canseco, who is 47, had hoped to play this season for the Quintana Roo Tigers of the Mexican League, which is affiliated with Major League Baseball and carries an equivalency to the Triple-A level.

Jose Canseco, who has not played professional baseball in 11 years, will try out with the Quintana Roo Tigers of the Mexican League, the team announced Sunday. "Back in baseball I knew I would play this year you just gotta believe in your dreams," Canseco wrote Sunday on Twitter. "Leave on redeye tonite to start spring training with AAA quintana roo tigers tomorrow . Team won league championship last year. " However, Tigers president Cuauhtemoc Rodriguez said Canseco has not signed a contract.

A former Mexican governor who was to be freed after 6 years behind bars was re-arrested Thursday on a U.S. extradition request in which he is accused of helping smuggle 200 tons of cocaine into the United States, federal prosecutors said. Mario Villanueva, the former governor of Quintana Roo state, went into hiding in 1999 and was captured two years later in Cancun. A judge on Tuesday ordered Villanueva's release on charges he laundered alleged drug money while governor. But on Thursday, federal police showed up at a prison west of Mexico City and took him to a lockup in the capital pending extradition.

U.S. prosecutors Friday unsealed an indictment accusing a former Mexican governor of cocaine smuggling on the same day he was jailed here after two years on the run. The joint moves were an unusual display of emerging U.S.-Mexican cooperation against drug traffickers. Mario Villanueva, at the time governor of Quintana Roo state, vanished in 1999, days before he was to leave office and just when Mexican authorities were about to charge him with trafficking. Federal police Thursday night arrested Villanueva, disguised with a goatee and a ponytail, in the resort city of Cancun.

Of course, you should beware of crime while planning and making your next international trip. But the numbers say that if you're among the unlucky few to die, a car, bus or motorcycle is more likely to kill you. Death by traffic is a recurring theme in a fascinating State Department Web page. For instance, by the department's count, of at least 126 Americans who died of "nonnatural causes" in Mexico in the first half of 2009, at least 45 perished in vehicle accidents. The figure for homicides: 36. The figure for drownings: at least 22, 10 of them in Baja California Sur, which includes Los Cabos and La Paz, and seven in the state of Quintana Roo, which includes Cancun and Cozumel.